Only A Surfer Knows The Feeling
by sunnywinterclouds
Summary: AU. Percy's got this really weird thing about surfboards.


Percy's twelve years old when he moves to San Francisco, and honestly? He doesn't like it much.

First of all, it's way too sunny. He's been a Yankee all his life, and he's never once had the desire to move away from New York City, where it's all pleasantly breezy and gloomy in a really good way. He did a bit of research after the initial temper tantrum resulting from learning that _they were moving to California,_ and it turns out it doesn't even _snow_ here! He really hates that. How will they get random days of school off if there're no snow days? Should he just hope for some sort of earthquake to block off the roads?

Then there's the noise. He's used to hearing car horns and sirens and city bustling when he's lulling off to sleep. It's soothing and natural and _normal._ He presumes that there are some parts of San-Fran that are all crowded and noisy, but oh, no, not here. No, they live _on the beach._ Like, literally. They live in this little two-bedroom cabin where when you step out the front door your toes are instantly in the sand. His mom loves it, and he could get used to it, too, because the ocean is something he adores, but going to sleep to the sound of waves and peacefulness and crap is _so_ not okay.

He wishes he could complain, but he doesn't want to upset his mom. She keeps asking him _so, Percy do you like it here? are you okay with all this? you're not too homesick?_ and being the wonderful, loyal son that he is, he keeps having to tell her it's fine, it's great, it's wonderful.

His mom's book has just become a bestseller, and he should be grateful that they have the money to live in a beach-front house in San Francisco when before today they'd been starving just to pay rent for a tiny upper-Manhattan apartment with Gabe Ugliano.

Yeah, this is _so_ much better.

But, still. Of all the places to move, why San Francisco? Couldn't they have gone to some bustling city with polluted skies and public transportation? Or maybe, just maybe, couldn't they have moved to a different apartment in New York? He knows that his mom wanted to leave the city and all the memories it held, he gets that, he _does,_ he wants to wipe away all thoughts of his ex-stepdad as well, but _seriously?_ Isn't running away to the other side of the country a bit of an overreaction?

_Alright,_ he'll admit it – he's bitter. He thinks a bunch of blasphemous thoughts about San Francisco to make himself feel better.

Like, say, this one – the people here are _really _not very nice.

New York City's no love fest, _that's_ for sure – he can't cout the number of times he's been shoved over in the street and then yelled at for getting in some poor pedestrian's way – but _this_ girl looks downright angry at him.

"Seriously?" she says, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring at him with scary-intense gray eyes. _Huh,_ he thinks. He's got a knack for pissing people off, he knows, but he's never seen this girl in his life before and _she's_ the one ringing _his_ doorbell, not the other way around, so he can't think of anything he might have done to make her angry.

"Hi," he says, even though it sounds kind of stupid in retaliation to her clear frustration. "I'm Percy."

She glares at him some more. "My friend used to live here."

"Okay?"

"He had to go off to college, and I was _hoping_ I'd get a good replacement."

College? This girl can't be more than a year older than him, tops, and she's friends with a college student? Way to make a poor guy feel intimidated.

"Sorry," he says lamely, and then adds, "but we look about the same age."

She narrows her eyes at him, again, and it strikes him that they're the only thing about her that's not all California-esque. She's tall and tan and has curly blonde hair but her eyes are smoky like the skies back in New York City.

"So?"

"So why am I such a lousy replacement friend?" This is _such_ a weird conversation. He doesn't even know this girl's name and he's already fighting to be given a chance in her social circle.

"Be_cause_," she says, like he's a five-year-old who can't grasp simple concepts (which isn't _too_ far off), "you're not a girl."

He rolls his eyes. Girl logic. "You just said your college friend was a boy."

"Did not!"

"You said _he._"

She narrows her eyes. Again. This girl has serious issues when it comes to friendliness. "Well, aren't you sharp."

It's not a question, not in the slightest, it's just a mean sarcastic statement, but he replies, "I guess," like an idiot anyway.

She ignores him – small miracles – and says, "Well, that was different. Luke was nineteen and smart and stuff."

_I'm smart,_ he's about to protest, but he's really not, so he decides against it. "Where do you live?"

She glares at him some more – Jesus _Christ, _did she ever stop? – and then points towards another one of the beach-front houses.

Crap. This girl is his _neighbor._

"Cool," he says weakly, already imagining scenarios in which he's building sand castles near the ocean and she comes stomping up to him and knocks everything over and throws a shovel in his face and then drowns him in the sea and his body washes up on shore two years later beyond identifiable and she gets away with murder.

She quirks an eyebrow and smirks at him, like she already knows what he's thinking. "I'm Annabeth," she announces formally, sticking her hand out like she's an adult or something. Sheesh. She must've been spending _way_ too much time with that college kid.

"Percy," he replies, even though he's already told her his name, as he eyes her hand warily. No way is he shaking that thing. She's probably got a kung-fu death grip. She'll probably judo-flip him if he so much as touches her.

Annabeth doesn't let her hand drop, just stares at him until he relents and shakes it. She somehow does it very business-like, which kind of creeps him out. Is she scamming him somehow?

"So how old _are_ you?"

"Twelve," is his immediate response. Finally. Something he doesn't have to freak out about saying.

Her face splits out in a smile, something he wasn't a hundred percent sure it was capable of doing, and he relaxes against the door frame. He's much more comfortable now that she appears to be human after all. "Me, too."

"Told you we were the same age."

She frowns at him again, but it's not nearly as mean this time. "You're pretty bold, you know that?"

He grins at her, because _that_'s an adjective that's been used to describe him time and time again, and she looks kind of taken aback. Huh. Maybe he's been sending off a few hostile vibes, too. "So I've been told." And then, because he's been kind of rude, "You wanna come in?"

She does.

Later, they go down to the boardwalk and he buys himself a surfboard. It's red and cheap and flimsy and he can't really ride it properly and Annabeth laughs at him a lot when he falls off of it repeatedly, but he likes it.

He likes his new surfboard, and he likes the ocean, and he kind of even likes the fact that he can see the stars at night.

He kind of likes Annabeth, too.

… … …

It's really weird when school starts up again. He's living right alongside a sunny beach – this feels way too much like a _vacation_ to have to get up early and ride the bus and deal with peer pressure and all that crap.

In other words, Percy's not really looking forward to the new school year.

Annabeth, on the other hand, is happier than he's ever seen her, except for that one time when he fell off the boardwalk and flipped out because he thought the water was like eight feet deep but turned out to be shallow enough to stand in. She _still_ smiles whenever she finds a reason to bring that up.

Anyway, she drags him down the convenience store and makes him help her buy notebooks and pencils and a new backpack. They've only known each other for a few weeks, but they're already spending pretty much all of their time together – he can't help but wonder how school is going to affect that, because he's about ninety percent positive that she's the kind of girl who sits in the front row and raises her hand at every question and is adored by all the teachers. He's… not.

If he's honest with himself, he's going to miss this. Playing in the ocean with her, roaming around downtown for a decent fast-food restaurant, sharing slurpies at 7-Eleven… it's cool to have a friend. Even if that friend is one that gets all overenthusiastic about _school_, of all things.

For now, though, he enjoys it. He mockingly holds up a _How To Train Your Dragon_ backpack for her and suggests she use markers on all of her schoolwork instead of the highly-overrated pencils. She just rolls her eyes at him and ends up buying a plain gray book bag and a set of multi-colored ballpoint pens. He doesn't buy anything at all.

"So you're just going to show up at school, completely unprepared? What if we have assignments on the first day? What if we have to take notes? What if there's a pop quiz?"

He rolls his eyes. "I'll bring a pen."

"No, you won't," she says, and he shrugs and grins mischievously at her.

She digs into her grocery bag and tosses him a blue pen. "So you don't fail," she responds to his quizzical glace.

"Sweet," he replies, pocketing it and hoping he doesn't lose it within the next twenty four hours. "But I'll probably fail anyway."

"Not with me around," she says cheerfully, and he laughs as she links her arm through his.

And as they tromp back towards the beach, he feels like a totally normal kid hanging out with a really good friend.

… … …

School's not so bad. He sits with Annabeth at lunch and has a few of his classes with her. He's not doing so badly with his grades so far – he's averaging a C+ this year, which Annabeth looks horrified by but he's really quite proud of. She's a straight-A student, of course, but at least she's not the kind that insists that all of her friends need to be straight-A students as well.

The more he gets to know her, the more in common it turns out they have – they both have ADHD and dyslexia, both of them had a parent that walked out on them while they were still a baby, they both love Greek mythology. They take to saying _gods_ instead of _god_ and _hades _instead of _hell_ and so on and so forth, and the weird looks they get from everyone make him smile because he has inside jokes with a friend.

A couple months into the school year, his ballpoint pen runs out of ink. He's going to throw it away, but… he just can't. He's had to for too long – how can he just dump it in the trash when he's managed to not lose it for all this time? Plus, he's already named it – Riptide, affectionately, and Annabeth just laughs – and it feels too much like a person to part with. So he finds another pen, takes out the ink stick, and puts it in Riptide. He really hopes it doesn't get lost any time soon.

There is this jerk girl named Clarisse who pushes him around a lot. It's kind of embarrassing, actually, because he's getting totally clobbered by a _girl _most days – he's not sexist, not by a long shot, because he knows Annabeth could kick his ass any time she wanted, but it's still pretty humiliating.

This one time Clarisse is shoving his face into a locker, and he's groaning and wishing a teacher would walk by when he hears Annabeth yelling from down the hall. She looks way angrier than usual, and he feels nervous even though she's reaming out Clarisse and not himself.

Clarisse leaves after receiving a thorough verbal lashing and a couple threats to be reported to the principal. Annabeth turns to him with worried eyes and asks, "You okay?"

"Fine," he says, straightening out his clothing. "Why'd you do that?"

She rolls her eyes, instantly going back to annoying, condescending, oddly endearing Annabeth, and says in her very practiced _well duh_ voice, "Because you're my best friend, idiot."

He's not sure why, but that sticks with him for a really long time.

… … …

It's summer again really really fast. That's a crazy-weird thing for Percy, because the school year usually drags on and on and on and on and –

There's this lifeguard at the beach. She's got long brown hair and blue eyes that are usually shrouded by these huge sunglasses and she's always wearing a red bathing suit and sitting up in that high chair and watching everyone. He'll admit it – he has a _massive_ crush on her.

"Dude, she's like, nineteen," Annabeth says, rolling her eyes, but that doesn't delay Percy in the slightest.

"You had a crush on Luke," he retorts, and blocks out the verbal assault he receives as she denies his accusations vehemently. Pfft. Every time she talks about him she gets all hyperventilate-y and blush-y.

He finds out a few days later that her name is Layla, and when he buys this new surfboard he does the weirdest thing.

He flips it over and carves her name into the bottom of it.

His crush doesn't last very long. He never sees her again after that summer, and doesn't even really think about her, but the trait sticks with him.

Every time he likes a girl, he buys a new surfboard, and then he gets out a knife and carves their name into the bottom. He uses the surfboard until his crush dissipates, and then he throws it in his ever-growing collection for the sake of memories.

Annabeth won't admit it, but she finds this quirk very endearing. "What about this one?" she questions, pointing to the red, flimsy surfboard – his very first – he uses whenever he's not interested in anyone.

He shrugs. "I dunno. Didn't buy it because of a girl." And the subject drops.

But, honestly, he's saving it. When he meets the girl of his dreams, the one he's sure he's going to spend the rest of his life with, he's going to put her name on there. Because that's his forever surfboard. It's the one he always goes back to. And that's what she'll be, too.

Annabeth laughs like crazy at him when he carves _Emma Stone_ on the bottom of a surfboard one time, and he blushes and tosses it into his collection pile after a few weeks. He breaks it out again every time they watch _Zombieland_ or _Crazy, Stupid Love_, though, which amuses his best friend to no end.

"You are _such_ a seaweed brain," she says fondly, and laughs when his eyebrows go up.

"_Seaweed brain?_ Seriously?"

She grins and taps a finger to his temple. "Don't say you need an explanation as to why."

He sticks his tongue out at her. "And what if I do?"

"Then you're an even bigger seaweed brain than previously assumed."

He pokes her in the shoulder.

"You're stupid and you spend all your time in the ocean because you think surfing is _cool_." She rolls her eyes. "What more explanation do you need?"

"Surfing _is_ cool," he argues, "and so you're saying all my brains leaked out and got replaced with seaweed?"

"That's right, kelp head," she says cheerfully, and he shoves her off the bed.

He spends the rest of the day trying to come up with good, insulting retorts, but _wise girl _and _owl head_ just make her laugh because they're so bad and he ends up trying to paddle her with his Emma Stone surfboard until she has to leave.

"See you later, Seaweed Brain," she says as she hugs him and runs off towards her house.

It's… it's insulting, sure, but he thinks he really likes that nickname anyway.

… … …

The first year of high school is _brutal_. Not for any particular reason, but because it's _high school_ and he's a _freshman_ and what more needs to be said?

He still has Annabeth, though, and his lucky pen, so he's pretty well off. All the other people in his grade act nice – or at least tolerant – towards him, so as long as he steers clear of the seniors, it's not so bad. He and Annabeth still hang out every single day after school, playing in the ocean or watching movies or playing video games (how the _fuck_ does she _always win?_) or, very rarely, doing homework. Annabeth is the most fantastic tutor in the entire universe, and if he gives her wide enough puppy-dog eyes, she usually blushes and lets him copy off of hers.

They have a ridiculous amount of sleepovers where they just stay up late eating popcorn and building pillow forts and playing _Truth or Dare_ which is basically just _Dare_ because they both know everything about each other anyway and if one of them chooses truth the other teases them mercilessly about being chicken until they concede defeat and switch to dare. It's really cool that their parents trust them enough to not really care about how much time they spend with each other – if they have a problem with their fourteen-year-old children staying in a room all night together with the door closed, they don't say anything about it.

Speaking of parents, Percy gets a new stepdad named Paul. He's nothing like Gabe – he's nice and funny and handsome-ish for an old guy and Percy can't ever imagine him hitting his mother. He likes him quite a bit, but he's not totally sure about him. For some reason, once Paul gets Annabeth's approval, Percy likes him more. If _Annabeth_ thinks he's a good guy, he must be.

He decides not to question why his mind works like that.

He asks her to be his (platonic) date to their wedding. She smiles really really hard at first, then a little bit less when he mentions the _platonic_ part, but she still smiles. She looks weirdly amazing all dressed up, and if she wasn't his best friend he might even think – well, he might even think she looked _pretty._

Yup, those are the kind of thoughts he has about his one hundred percent platonic date. He is so weird.

There's a school dance that year, and at first he's really nervous about asking someone – he's got a crush on this girl in art class that he's already made a surfboard for – but then he finds out it's Sadie Hawkins and isn't sure whether to feel more or less anxious. On the one hand, no pressure of asking anybody. On the other hand, what if nobody asks him?

He catches Annabeth giving him a lot of nervous looks around then. A couple of times, she starts to question him about something, then closes her mouth shut firmly and blushes hard and looks anywhere but him.

_Girls._

Rachel – the girl from his art class – ends up asking him, and he's so pleased that as soon as she's out of sight he does this goofy little happy dance. He turns to Annabeth, expecting her to join in with him, but instead her lips are pursed and she's glaring after Rachel like she's the bane of her existence or something. He pokes her repeatedly, insisting that he needs to know what's wrong, but she just sets her mouth firmly in a straight line and doesn't look at him for a while.

"I don't like her," she says later, at his house, after several hours of prodding and whining and irresistibly adorable pleading.

"Why not?"

"She's so…" Annabeth flails her arms around wildly, searching for the right words. "She's so _weird,_ Percy!"

"_I'm_ weird," he replies, laughing, but Annabeth just sinks down further into the couch and looks miserable.

"No, you're not," she says, and picks up a pillow to press to her face. She mumbles something else, something that sounds oddly kind of like _you're perfect_ but her voice is too muffled to tell and he's not dumb enough to think that's what she _actually _said even though it's a really nice thought.

Percy has a lot of fun at the dance. Annabeth lurks in the corner and drinks a lot of punch. The only time he sees her smile is when he insists that they dance together because they're BFFs and then he does the Macarena really really badly.

He and Rachel, however, decide that they're probably better off as just friends, and they part ways on super good terms. For some reason, Annabeth and her become awesome friends after that. Percy just shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

_Girls._

That night, he wants to watch _Clash of the Titans_ because he has the same name as the main character and _how cool is that?_ but somehow – _somehow – _they end up putting in some incredibly boring architecture documentary called _Dogville._ Ugh.

He swears he sees Annabeth smirk when he finally gives up and lays his head on her lap, resigning himself to falling asleep, and the last thing he feels is her fingers in his hair and her murmuring something inaudible as he drifts off.

The next day, as he tosses his Rachel surfboard in the corner, he picks up his old red one and wonders if he's ever going to carve a name in it.

… … …

Sophomore year, Percy gets his heart broken for the first time.

Calypso just seemed so _nice._ She was his first girlfriend, and she had long caramel-colored hair and kind eyes and a beautiful smile and the last two months with her were amazing. He briefly considered carving her name in his first surfboard, the red one, but… no.

And then she cheated on him, and he just wants to go curl himself up into a little ball and hide out in his bedroom forever.

Annabeth comes over for the first time in weeks that night - she's been declining his invitations for about two months now - and just the sight of her is enough to make him feel better. He figures she must have heard about everything with Calypso, because she's well-equipped with comfort items; _Clash of the Titans_ in one hand and ice cream in the other. She takes one look at him, drops them both, and pulls him in for a warm hug.

"I'm so sorry, Percy," she says softly, drawing circles on his back, and he just holds her closer.

Annabeth goes through his surfboard collection and finds the orange and blue one with Calypso's name at the bottom of it. They go out to the beach, start a bonfire, and burn it.

"I don't know if we should –" Percy starts, but Annabeth gives him a firm look.

"Calypso doesn't deserve to be in your collection," she says bitterly, and breaks the surfboard over her knee like she's cutting Calypso herself in half. He laughs at how violent she is, and she grins as she tosses the pieces of wood into the flames.

Later, they're up in his room, and she picks up his red surfboard and examines it closely.

"You know," she murmurs, "you should carve your own name on the bottom of this."

He hesitates, because that's not a half-bad idea, but then shakes his head. "Actually, I'm saving that."

"For what?"

"For _who._ My soulmate."

She gives him this unreadable look, and he rolls his eyes. "I know you don't believe in that stuff, but I do. When I find the girl I'm gonna spend forever with, I'm gonna carve her name in."

Annabeth just nods and bites her lip.

"What if you get it wrong?"

"I won't. Trust me. I'll know."

Annabeth traces something out on his surfboard with her fingers, something that looks oddly like letters. "What if… what if you never find her?"

"I will. I just… I know it. I will."

Annabeth props the surfboard gently against the wall and flops down onto the bed with him.

"What if you've already found her?"

He laughs and shakes his head. "No. I'll know when I find her. It'll be… it'll be magical."

She nods and looks away from him.

"Love at first sight, huh?"

"Yup. Don't be so cynical, Annabeth. It can happen."

"Yeah," she says, picking at her nails, "but I think… don't you think it's better if it builds on a great friendship, or whatever?"

He takes a moment to think about that. "For some people, sure. But I'm so spontaneous, I think I'm more of a love-at-first-sight kind of guy. You… _you're_ a friendship romance girl."

She snorts. "I sure am," she says, then blushes and looks at the floor. "I should probably get going now. Are you gonna be okay?"

"I'll be fine," he says, smiling at her. "You're an awesome friend. The best."

"I know," she says, and if detects a bit of sadness in her voice he must just be imagining it. "Your best friend."

He hugs her goodbye and pulls his red surfboard into his lap once she's left.

He loves this surfboard. Since the moment he'd moved here, it'd always been there for him. He's liked others, been with others, but in the end he always came back to it, and it never ever left his side. It was always the _best._ It was always there for him, from the very beginning.

That's what it symbolizes. It symbolizes a girl who is and always will be all of those things.

It symbolizes a girl just… like… Annabeth.

Oh.

_Shit._

… … …

Percy feels all awkward around Annabeth that summer. It's just… it's just so _weird._ One day, he's totally happy to have her as an awesome best friend and, besides the occasional inappropriate thoughts about how beautiful she was, he'd never really even considered crossing the line that separated them as _just friends._

It's all he can think about now.

How did he not see it _before?_ How he can always be his absolute, unhidden self around her. How they can toss insults back and forth at each other and laugh at one another and reminisce together about when they were younger. How they have all their inside jokes about gods and pens and blue food and how whenever he's even remotely sad she demands to know what's wrong and then goes to the ends of the earth to make him feel better. How she looks with her head thrown back, laughing, her blonde curls falling down her back and her eyes all crinkled around the edges. How he can tell her everything.

Except, apparently, this.

_Annabeth._

Gods, even her _name_ is perfect. He totally gets how she doesn't want anyone to shorten it to Anna or Beth. It's wonderful the way it is.

She gives him a lot of worried looks these days. Probably because he's acting totally crazy. That's okay, though. Love makes you crazy. _Crazy, Stupid Love._ Pfft. Annabeth beats Emma Stone out of the waters any day.

Her birthday rolls around, and he's not sure if this is an awesome idea or a terrible one but he knocks on her door anyway.

"Percy," she says, grinning. "It's a little early for surfing, don't you think?"

He looks down at the red board in his hands. "Kinda, yeah."

"And I don't see my present anywhere…" she looks around, still smiling like crazy. "Hopefully it's so big that you're gonna have to bring me over to your house to see it, huh?"

"Um," he says, blushing so that he's approximately the same color as his surfboard. "No."

She cocks her head to the side. "Then where is it?"

"I mean… it _is_ back home, your gift, but I… I wanted to give you this other gift first."

"Okay…?"

"I don't… I don't know if you'll like it. At all. You might hate it."

She grins at him some more. "As long as it's from you," she says teasingly, and his stomach gets all butterfly-y.

He holds out the surfboard to her, and her eyes widen. "What… I can't take _that,_ Seaweed Brain! That's your _surfboard._"

Percy smiles at the way she says _surfboard_ all reverently, like it's some prized artifact. "I… I'm not giving it to you."

"Oh," she says, frowning. "Then –"

He flips it over, not daring to breathe as she reads out her own name where it's carved into the bottom. Her mouth drops open, then closes, then drops open again, and he bites back a few comments about how she looks like a fish because then she would_ so_ punch him in the face.

"I –" he starts, but then her arms are around his neck and they're _kissing_ and he completely forgets what he was about to say.

And he always thought, when he found his soulmate, it would be a _sight_ thing. Love at first sight. He'd see her, and he'd be in love with her, and they'd be together forever. Or maybe it would be her voice, some wonderful voice that he'd hear and never want to stop hearing ever. Or maybe her fingers would touch his skin and he'd feel electric shocks run through his body as he realized that they were destined to be in love.

His first thought when he saw Annabeth was how _angry_ she looked and what he possibly could have done so quickly to make her that mad, which he wouldn't exactly classify as immediately falling for her. Her voice was all annoyed and disbelieving when she snapped _seriously? _at him in form of a greeting, which he's also pretty sure doesn't count as instant infatuation. The first time they touched was when they shook hands, all formally and adult like, and he'd been afraid that she might throw him over her shoulder and start pummeling him.

In short, all three of his theories had been proved absolutely wrong, which, hey, doesn't surprise him at all. He almost failed science.

Because it's not sight or hearing or touch that makes him fall in love with her, it's _her_. It's just _her._ The fact that she is Annabeth, and she is everything, and she is perfect.

And as for the moment he's a hundred percent positive they're destined for each other for the rest of eternity?

That's when her lips press against his, all fierce and wanting but gentle and loving and wonderful, and that's not sight or hearing or touch, either. That's taste.

That's love.

**yes, yes, that ending was weak, I know. didn't know how to wrap it up right. all typos are my own doing, deepest apologies.**


End file.
